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According to the results of a new study, shortly after the creation of the solar system, Mars could have formed a primordial crust capable of accommodating life. The research is based on an badysis of rare and super-precious Black Beauty meteorite, discovered in the Sahara desert in 2011.
At the beginning of the history of our solar system, we think of rocky planets as Earth and Mars have been covered in the global oceans of liquid magma. Finally, it is thought that these oceans have crystallized, or have solidified, giving rise to relatively stable outer layers known as crusts.
For obvious reasons, the formation of a crust is an essential step in making a planet a viable candidate for the emergence of life, but the delays on which these geological processes have have occurred are still poorly understood.
An international team of scientists provided evidence of the crystallization of the Mars magma ocean, cracking the Martian Black Beauty meteorite. Martian meteorites are valuable pieces of material that are highly valued by collectors, as well as scientists who hope to use the ancient specimens to shed light on some of the mysteries surrounding the evolution of the red planet.
Black Beauty is a particularly expensive specimen, with only one gram of meteorite sold for about US $ 10,000 per pop. The scientists behind the new study were able to get an impressive 44 grams of the rare meteorite. Their goal was to badyze the deposits of a mineral called zircon that were included in black beauty.
Zircon is an incredibly strong mineral that is known to preserve information about where it crystallizes. As a bonus, the mineral can also be dated incredibly accurately by observing isotopic disintegration in the material.
Zircon deposits in black beauty were extremely small, and to achieve this, scientists were forced to crush 5 grams of this precious meteor. Fortunately, their bet bore fruit, and scientists were able to badyze seven separate zircons, one of which turned out to be the oldest Martian zircon ever discovered.
It was found that deposits contained significant levels of the chemical element hafnium, which was part of the oldest crust of Mars. By badyzing these tiny pieces of ancient Mars, scientists were able to conclude that the magma ocean of the red planet had crystallized in the 20 million years of the solar system 's creation, and that a short time later, a solid crust had arrived. form. This primordial crust could have hosted oceans of water, presenting a theoretically habitable environment
The data support an extremely rapid crystallization process. For comparison, a solid crust would not form on Earth for another 130 million years. The team believes that the early crust of Mars lasted about 100 million years before being reworked, probably by cataclysmic asteroid impacts. This cataclysm melted the surface of the red planet, creating a magma from which the zircons of Black Beauty, with samples of the primordial Martian crust, crystallized.
The study greatly expands the window in which life could have emerged on Mars, and, to paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm of Jurbadic Park, the longer Mars would remain potentially habitable, the more life there was to find a way …
An article detailing the results was published in the journal Nature .
Source: Museum of Natural History of Denmark
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